I'm aware that this was self-published, and that there's a really clear aim here of providing some insight into ways that anxiety can present, the benefits of therapy and how you can use your symptoms positively.
That said, I've struggled with how to respectfully get across how truly bad I found this book.
Starting with the writing: I don't think I've ever wanted to throw a book across the room more. The entire book is filled with short, staccato sentences that make no sense and grammatically make me want to cry.
Examples include:
"Passing a cup of black coffee to Chloe, and the super hero mug to him. Asking her to sit down. After she had put her coat in the cupboard in the corner."
"Taking the route which Mr Jones had told her to. Without the necessity of asking him to repeat his earlier directions."
Ugh. The whole book is like this... it really needs an editor with a good understanding of English grammar to rewrite the whole thing.
Moving on: almost all the characters are truly awful. Mr Jones and Mark are misogynistic one dimensional creeps and Hannah is portrayed as only having one personality trait - being horrible. I feel like Sarah was nice but even though I finished this a few hours ago, I can't even tell you anything about her other than she was at the real estate company.
And Chloe. What can I even say? She is just awful (I don't even care that I'm repeating myself - it really is the best description). She's insecure, selfish, self-centred, jealous, immature, and distrustful. Jack was fine, but the relationship between the two was extremely one-dimensional, and I wouldn't have cared at all if they had broken up.
The strongest character of the book was the counsellor, Colin, though I suspect this more because this is the author's background rather than being well written.
I honestly couldn't tell you anything more about any of the characters, such as how they were supposed to look or their interests, because the only thing that stood out was the Jack was a painter... and even that - there was no description of the type of art he did, or paint splatter on his clothes, or the small of turps... anything that would make it a little more real.
The plot... is okay. Using a tragedy to spike a change is sensible, and it follows on that things unravel as Chloe doesn't address her mounting issues. I would have liked more here about how her anxiety is her superpower - not just a wordy spiel from Colin that didn't make a lot of sense.
Ironically, my anxiety is spiking massively about posting this review, but I feel something needs to be said because I bought this based on all the 5 stars on here.... I truly had to double-check we read the same book as this is no way worth it.
1 star. Sorry. ☹️